My stay at OSCON ended short but my last night was by far the best time I had. At Writing for O’Reilly told us stories of his history as a writer, editor and bookbinder. He discussed O’Reilly’s policies and process and gave all around good advice.

Then Aron Wall got me playing his eponymous self-modifying and open source card game, which was wonderful! He should be posting some instructions on his website soon but his technical precision (“you play the card on yourself or on someone else depending on your relative affection for either”) and his own brand of Wallisms (“that would be interesting” he responded when asked if “Socialism” should be played). It was great to be with the other Wall children, they’re incredibly bright and clever. Fellow player Schuyler suggested that the game should be called “Semantics” since it was all about arguing and word changing. We had a lot of fun.

Afterwards I headed over to Something Interesting Dominus is Working On (I couldn’t resist the name!) and even though I’d missed his presentation, Dominus recapped things for us. Across the hall in the Music BOF we had some lovely music from assorted programmers with voices, guitars, flutes and pianos. I’ll never forget the sight of Eric Raymond singing the Masochism Tango.

After that I headed up to the Perl party (my algorithm for finding parties is unstoppable: sit around downstairs until somebody asks me if I’m coming to the party, then follow them) where we pakced into Nat Torkington’s apartment for a night of heady discussions.

I had to leave the next morning and miss some great presentations, but I had a wonderful time anyway.

posted July 26, 2002 07:42 PM (Technology) #

Nearby

Guido van Rossum: State of the Python Union
HelixCommunity.org
RMS and Miguel: Straight Talking
blue gene
Carl Malamud: NetTopBox
OSCON: Final Night
get out of my hair
Eyesight Feedback
movable code
irby nation
pay up for free software

Aaron Swartz (me@aaronsw.com)